Comments on: Vern’s Been PISTOL WHIPPED By Seagal!http://outlawvern.com/2008/02/29/pistol-whipped/
home of Vern, critic and authorSun, 07 Jun 2020 08:16:12 +0000hourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.14By: The Original Paulhttp://outlawvern.com/2008/02/29/pistol-whipped/#comment-3356301
Wed, 12 Aug 2015 05:19:42 +0000http://outlawvern.com/?p=1687#comment-3356301And in case I sound too bitter above, I do want to make it clear that this is the best Seagal since EXIT WOUNDS, easily, of the ones I’ve seen at least. Even though I think they flunked the ending badly, this is still the case. It’s just… man, I wish they’d nailed the landing.
]]>By: The Original Paulhttp://outlawvern.com/2008/02/29/pistol-whipped/#comment-3356300
Wed, 12 Aug 2015 04:51:35 +0000http://outlawvern.com/?p=1687#comment-3356300Ok. Aside from a few distracting avid-fart moments, this one was great. I loved the moment (highlighted by Vern in SEAGALOGY I believe) when the bowling alley guy gives Seagal the “strike!” symbol after he’s killed the guy’s abusive employers. The movie has several moments like this.

It therefore pains me to report that after the “twist”, the movie falls to pieces. The action scenes get a helluva lot more ambitious, and unfortunately that ambition is not matched by the ability of whoever was directing them to make it clear what the heck was going on. There’s two big action scenes – an afternoon shoot-out and the final action scene – where there’s just an obnoxious amount of slow-motion put in for no good reason whatsoever. Mostly it’s of anonymous stuntmen, who don’t much resemble anybody actually acting in the movie, diving over cars or doing exaggerated “oh my Gawd I’ve been shot!”-pratfalls.

That first action sequence, for example, ends up with the people chasing Seagal and Calderon get hit by a car, which flips over their heads in more obnoxious slow-motion. (This is the style of slow motion that I’ve railed against in the past, and for good reason. Good use of slow-motion is to punctuate a significant or important moment – that bit in HARD BOILED, in the middle of that action scene, where one of the protagonists realises that he’s just killed a cop by accident for example. This is not that style of slow-motion. This is the “Hey, look at our fantastic effect! Look at how well we’ve done it! Look at it for five seconds while we stop the movie dead, just in case you don’t appreciate how good an effect it is!”-type slow motion.)

The thing is, regarding that car that flips over the pursuers – I don’t know where it came from or who was in it. It might be a main character or just some anonymous passer-by who got unlucky. I have no freaking idea. Nor do I have any idea what happened to Henriksen’s character at the final action scene. The last time I noticed him, it looked as though he’d been shot in the shoulder. After that, I have no idea. Did he survive? Was he the white-haired guy who got shot and did a slow-mo backflip while conveniently facing away from the camera so we couldn’t see his face? I’ve watched that scene twice and I have no fucking clue.

All this is annoying enough, but what really kills it is that the whole thing is scored with the same fake-sounding guitar music that I disliked in HARD TO KILL, and that that music is set way too loud. It’s just there, and it’s obnoxious. It’s not dynamic – it doesn’t get louder or stronger when there’s a particular action beat or anything – it doesn’t adjust according to the mood of the scene. It’s just so much constant noise. Gave me a headache.

The movie ends by setting up two quite brilliant “beats” that would’ve been really interesting to see, and then cops-out on both of them. The first involves what seems to be a moment of genuine respect and cameraderie between Seagal and the dying villain, completely spoilt by the “cremation” line and subsequent explosion. Immediately afterwards we see his daughter’s horror at watching her father blow up a man she knows well and has grown close to… only it’s not horror at that at all, it’s horror that Seagal might’ve been blown up himself. Another wasted opportunity. It would’ve been a nice ending for the daughter to have had a bit of last-minute character development where she had to come to terms with her father’s work, but nope. They go for the less-interesting, more-contrived ending instead.

Oh well, at least the scene in the church was good. A nice beat to end the movie on.

Yeah… this one completely had me until the final twenty minutes, then spoilt it with some awful action scenes and off-putting character moments. It’s a pity because it’s probably Seagal’s best DTV effort until that point. I hate that once the villain is revealed, or at least after Seagal accepts him as such, there’s no acknowledgement at all of their shared past or anything. It’s like “We’re enemies now, let’s kill each other.” There’s a bit at the end where it looks as though we’ll get a moment like this, but they blow it (literally) for the sake of a dumb-as-hell one-liner. I like Seagal movie one-liners but this was not the time or the place for one. And without that added emotional tie, the villain becomes just another scowling mastermind with no appreciable personality. God knows what Seagal’s character’s wife thinks about this. (Also, what’s with this movie’s obsession with defiling religious places / symbols?)

I’m a little bitter about this one because it’s way, way, way better than ATTACK FORCE, on every level. Seagal wears his maturity better than he has in years, the minor characters are more memorable, the cast is just all-round better. I said recently that I wanted to see a DTV-era Seagal movie where I could enjoy it on its own merits, not by laughing at the ludicrously bad moments in it. PISTOL WHIPPED is that movie. For the majority of its running time, it had me. I was all ready to write a glowing review here, singing its praises. And then it fucked it up at the end. Damn it.

So far it’s had the most realistic poker scene I’ve ever seen in a movie, I think. A man goes “on tilt” after a bad loss and calls an overbet to a pot with two pair and a four-straight on board. That’s the kind of shit that actually happens in a poker game.

I gotta be honest, I’ve read Vern’s review, spoilers and all, so I know some major plot points. But I’m enjoying this nonetheless so far. Living up to its positive reputation. Seagal wears his age better in this one than he has in the last several DTV films of his that I’ve seen.

]]>By: Charleshttp://outlawvern.com/2008/02/29/pistol-whipped/#comment-714199
Fri, 03 Jun 2011 22:49:18 +0000http://outlawvern.com/?p=1687#comment-714199I have been rereading “Seagology” and trying to catch up on some of Seagal’s better DTV movies, and I recently watched this one and THE KEEPER. THE KEEPER was OK, but I really enjoyed PW. Also, I am surprised that you did not mention Seagal’s one liner at the end after killing the bad guy. I think it was something like “Well, you are cremated now mother fucker”. Great stuff! Now on to URBAN JUSTICE and INTO THE SUN.
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